The Garden
by Karri
Summary: Hidden things are ready to be discovered in Ithilien now that Sauron is defeated.


Title: The Garden

Rating: G

Characters: Legolas, Faramir, OC

Warnings: None

Summary: Hidden things are ready to be discovered in Ithilien now that Sauron is defeated.

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"Is this not a fair aspect? Faramir wishes to build on the northern edge, overlooking the city, as befits his upbringing, I suppose, but I'd rather gaze out upon the uninterrupted plain. What say you, Legolas?"

Legolas heard Eowyn's soft voice. Some part of his mind even comprehended that a question had been asked, but the greater part of his awareness was too distracted to register the words. A plaintive groan had shuddered through his soles as they'd crossed to the southern slope of Emyn Arnen. The anguish of it tugged at him, pulling him out onto the plain.

"Legolas?"

The voice faded into the whisper of a breeze, as he stepped onto the plain and a wail of despair pierced Legolas's soul stealing his breath away. His overwrought senses screamed and darkness blurred the edges of his vision. Then, for just a moment as the wail ceased, Legolas mused that the world was shifting beneath his feet.

"Legolas?" It was Aragorn's voice this time. "Come on, Legolas, open those elf eyes of yours," his friend persisted, tugging Legolas further into consciousness. Pain thrummed through his skull, and he moaned. "There you are, my friend."

There was concern bordering on alarm in his friend's voice, prodding Legolas to flutter his eyes open and peer up in a squint. His brown furrowed in bewilderment. He had been… Legolas's mind struggled to remember through the lingering memory of anguish. _Ah, Emyn Arnen, _he finally recalled. _But then where am I now? _ He wondered, his gaze wandering the lines of the ornate ceiling above him, until a face drifting into view narrowed his focus.

"Aragorn," Legolas greeted, and saw the subtle relief reflected in his friend's eyes. "How… Where…" he began to ask.

"We are in the Houses of Healing," replied the King.

Legolas frown in puzzlement. Had he not been on Emyn Arnen with Faramir and the Lady Eowyn?

Almost as though he'd heard the thought, Aragorn stated, "You fainted. Faramir and the Lady Eowyn were unable to rouse you, and thus brought you here."

"Fainted!" Legolas squawked, glancing around discreetly.

"Worry not," Aragorn insisted. "Gimli is not near." The King smiled half-heartedly as Legolas relaxed back into his pillow. "Had you slept longer, I would have sent word to him, but as you have awoken, he need never know…" Aragorn winked, but then grew serious once more. "I, however, should like to know what force there is still present in the world that can take down an elf…"

Legolas closed his eyes, his brow furrowing as he cast his mind back to his stroll upon Emyn Arnen. There HAD been something… But what? It seemed to lay just on the edge of consciousness, vague and mercurial, almost more of an echo… "An echo," he repeated aloud, and saw his own bewilderment reflected back in Aragorn's reflection. "Be not concerned," Legolas reassured. "I think it was only…" He shrugged. "I think perhaps a bit of shadow lingers still in the Ephel Duath, and we wandered too near…"

Aragorn frowned dubiously, and Legolas wished he could offer better assurance to his friend. _But how do I explain a feeling on the edge of awareness…? _For a moment, it seemed to him that Aragorn might press him to try, but then his friend seemed to resign himself.

"Rest," the King ordered. He raised his hand as Legolas opened his mouth to object. "I know, I know," Aragorn declared wearily. "You are an elf, and thus you do not need rest, but humor me and do so, all the same," he nearly pleaded. "For my sake, if not your own… My heart nearly stopped when Faramir brought you to me limp and lifeless."

Legolas held back a sigh and simply nodded.

XXXXXXX

_I really intended to rest…_ Legolas thought to himself as he meandered along the path that he had trod across Emyn Arnen earlier. A twinge of guilt clung to him, for he knew his friend would worry, but it was as if the…_echo _had tied a string to his soul and was pulling him irresistibly back to itself. Legolas was prepared this time, though, as a familiar groan shuddered through the ground beneath his feet. He paused then, taking a deep breath as he steeled himself to step down into the plain.

The wail took his breath away in a gasp, all the same, but this time Legolas forced himself to gasp away the darkness and focus. _Stop! _He nearly shouted aloud, as the anguish and despair threatened to overwhelm him. The din of emotion dimmed. _Thank you, _Legolas responded. _I will aid you, if I can, but you must help me to do so. _ The anguish and despair stilled, but the tug increased. Legolas closed his eyes, allowing it to guide him completely.

He'd lost track of distance when it abruptly released him. Legolas opened his eyes to find himself standing upon the edge of a thicket of low-lying thorns. His brow furrowed briefly, before rising in wonder as ground beneath the leading edge of the thicket opened into…_a stair. _

Legolas hesitated only a moment before venturing downward into the…_light? _He had expected darkness. But as reached the bottom, Legolas saw that the ground above him was not actually ground at all. It was simply thorny branches, woven together loosely. From below, the sunlight streamed in from above, but from above, the shallow basin was camouflaged completely.

He glanced around, looking for the source of the anguish. He was soon distracted, though, by the garden that surrounded him. Legolas strolled along once orderly rows. There were vestiges of plants he knew, and some that he did not. _Was that corn? And tomatoes? _He'd never seen either; even if he had, they were withered now. Still, they seemed to resemble the plants Samwise had described to him as the Fellowship had journeyed. _Ah! And flowers, too._ He registered, with a grin, as he ventured into another once ordered section. Despite its wilted, over-grown state, Legolas could tell it had been beautiful once—a garden that even Elrond himself might have envied. _Someone loved this place once!_

"Someone still does," moaned the air around him. Legolas flinched as it rumbled through him, then darted his gaze around, seeking the source. He nearly started out of his skin as pair of eyes blinked out at him from a shadowing corner. Cocking his head, it took Legolas a full second to comprehend that the eyes were not hidden behind the smooth gray surface of what he'd assumed to be the roots of the thorny mass above. Rather, the eyes belonged to the "roots." _An Ent! _The creature did not quite resemble any of the Ents he'd previously encountered, though. It was not quite…_treeish _enough.

"A Huorn?" Legolas wondered aloud, but shook his head even as he said it. If anything, Huorns were even more treeish than Ents.

The creature made a sound that Legolas thought might have been an irritated huff, had it not been so miserable. "Not a Huorn," it stated, wearily. "We were Ent-wives, once."

Legolas's brows rose higher than ever, but he quickly gathered his composure and queried, "Once? Are you no longer?"

The creature seemed almost to shrug. "I cannot say," it admitted. "For to be an Ent-wife, there must be Ents, also. Long have we been trapped here, unable to leave without revealing this last garden to the shadow. Thus, we know not whether there still be Ents in this world or if, like our sisters, they were destroyed as Men and darkness spread across the land."

Legolas's brow furrowed. "We?"

The eyes shifted to look past him, and Legolas turned. He saw nothing, at first, but withered roots supporting the other side of the thorny cover above. But as he scrutinized the shadowing bark, he saw, _perhaps_, a pair of closed eyes.

"My sister has grown too weary to do ought beyond keeping her arms raised," the creature sighed. "I fear I am nearing that point as well. Then what hope will there be? There shall be none left that might care for this garden again when it is safe, once more, to open it up fully to the light."

Legolas flinched as a fresh wave of anguish and despair washed over him. He closed his eyes as he wavered. Taking a deep breath, he gathered himself and opened his eyes. "That is why you reached out…" he murmured, more to himself than the creature.

"It is," the creature confirmed. "It has been…I cannot say, really, but a very long time since I sensed the presence of an elf. When I felt you…" Legolas felt, more than heard, her sigh. "At last, a creature with the power to restore life to our garden, and nurture it as we ourselves once had. Such a rush of hope…it nearly broke my heart!"

Legolas frowned. "Broke your heart?"

The eyes blinked slowly and the whole basin seemed to take a long, sad breath. "It had been so long since I have felt ought by shadow. I thought it could not be an elf; not here, not in the land of Men and shadow. My own desperation must be deceiving me. But you are real! You are real?"

Legolas felt the air fill with anguish once more and quickly stepped forward to press a hand against to the creature's smooth bark. "I am real," he assured, "and the shadow has passed." Skeptical eyes met his. "It has," Legolas insisted. Men and Elves, Hobbits, Dwarves, and even Ents...yes, Ents," he repeated as the eyes staring at him widened. "They still exist in the world… and they joined with us to fight the shadow and defeat it!"

The creature gazed upward, doubt filling the air until it was almost stifling.

"Sauron is defeated. Truly!" Legolas declared.

"But Men…" the creature murmured.

Legolas stroked the smooth bark. "You need not worry. There are Men who have been touched by shadow, it is true. But this land, it is ruled by a good Man. He has wandered amongst Elves and Dwarves and Hobbits…" He felt the bark vibrate with curiosity at the mention of the Hobbits. "Ah, yes, the Ents did not know of Hobbits, either. They are Manish, I think Treebeard called them, but smaller—the size of an elf-child. They love plants. I know one in particular who could out-garden even an Elf, I think." A rumble of laughter filled the basin. "So, though Men will live here still, you need not hide your garden away, for these men…they will cherish it. And I will bring Elves to dwell here, too, for a time at least."

"You will not stay?"

Sorrow, tinged with fear, filled the air around Legolas. He sighed. "The time of the Elves is in its last days, I fear. Middle-earth belongs to Men now, and we can but teach them to cherish it and all that grows upon it as best we may before we go."

Legolas felt the anguish building again. "Nay!" he blurted, hoping to forestall it. "Do not grieve. Change is the nature of life, even for the likes of us, who must endure the swift changing of the world while we seem to change little. It is in the experience that we ourselves keep growing and changing in our hearts and minds."

The large eyes blinked sadly, but before Legolas could offer further reassurance, the air around him filled with fury and alarm.

"What…?" he began to ask.

"Men," came an angry grumble.

Legolas heard then what he'd been too distracted to notice before…. A voice, growing ever nearer, calling his name searchingly. _Faramir. My absence has been noticed…_

The light shifted around him, and Legolas abruptly noticed the "stair" had begun to close. He raised his hand placatingly. "Please," he begged. "Do not shut yourself off from the world again! Let him come down. You will see then. There are good Men in the world. Men who will marvel at your garden and plead for the chance to tend it."

Legolas could feel her dubiousness in the air, but the "stair" opened up again, all the same.

"Faramir!" Legolas beckoned. "I am here! Come, join me!"

Legolas stroked the smooth bark as they waited, the air around him tense and anxious. But soon a curious head popped through the opening. "Legolas?"

"Come!" Legolas greeted, and Faramir scurried down the "stair." His eyes grew wide as he wandered, awestruck, into the center of the garden.

"What…?"

"It is a garden, of course," Legolas replied.

Faramir frowned. "It was, perhaps. I think it is more the memory of a garden now." Legolas quirked his head at that but said nothing. "It could be again, though, I think. It has good bones. Perhaps if we work together? It could be marvelous…," Faramir's voice drifted off as he imagined bringing life and order back to the overgrown rows.

"You see," remarked Legolas. "There IS hope for Middle-earth, even in the hands of Men."

"What was that?" Faramir asked, turning toward Legolas. He started back a step as the large eyes of the Ent-wife met his. "What…? Who…?"

"I have made a new friend," stated Legolas, matter-of factly. "I would introduce you, but I fear I have been remiss, as we have not introduced ourselves, yet."

A laughter rumbled through the air. "It has been long since I needed a name," the Ent-wife acknowledged. "In my own tongue, my name is too long and sad for Men, I think. You may call me Apple Blossom."

Legolas bobbed his head in greeting. "I am Legolas," he replied. "And this is my friend, Lord Faramir. He is to be the Prince of this land."

"It is my honor," Faramir greeted, with a slight bow. "As it would be my honor to govern this beautiful garden, if you would allow it."

"Beautiful?" queried Apple Blossom. "It was once. But now it is overgrown and wilted, for we have spent our energies hiding it, rather than tending it."

"It IS beautiful!" countered Faramir. "I can see it in my mind…how it will be once the plants are tended." He lovingly caressed the stalk of a wilted cornstalk, as he once again lost himself in his imagining what the garden could be.

Legolas felt the air around himself shift gradually from doubt to joy. But beneath his hand, he felt almost overwhelming weariness. "You see," whispered Legolas. "Even without elves, your garden is in good hands." He stroked the smooth bark. "You are free now."

Legolas felt a sigh of air whisper through the basin as the large eyes closed. _ Thank you_, he felt it say. _I shall sleep peacefully now._

The End.


End file.
